FACT SHEET
ACTION MANAGER FOR RETAIL, POWERED BY PROFITECT
Action Manager for Retail, Powered by Profitect
MAXIMIZE INVENTORY PERFORMANCE, SALES AND PROFITABILITY
THROUGH POWERFUL AUTOMATED PRESCRIPTIVE ANALYTICS
If your inventory is under-performing, your profitability and the overall success of your store is directly impacted.
But maximizing inventory performance is a major balancing act. You need ample stocking thresholds to eliminate
out-of-stocks and the resulting lost sales. Overstocking can prevent out-of stocks, but it will also increase inventory
space requirements and inventory carrying costs. The financial impact of out-of-stocks and overstocking in your store
may be staggering. CNBC reported that these two inventory-related issues, plus the returns cost retailers around the
world $1.75 trillion dollars in 20151 alone — and that number is aggressively on the rise:
• Out-of-stocks accounted for $634.1 billion in lost sales in 2015 — up 39% from 2012. That translates into a
staggering double-digit 11.7% per year increase in lost sales for the last three years. Out-of-stocks are the leading
inventory-related issue — in the U.S. alone, 75% of adults experienced an out-of-stock in a brick-and-mortar store
last year, with the majority opting to shop at a competitive store or simply deciding not to make the purchase.1
• Following closely on the heels of out-of-stocks, overstocks are also very costly, accounting for $471.9 billion in
lost revenues – up 20% from 2012, an 6.2% per year increase between 2012 and 2015.1
As if these factors aren’t enough, poor sales during promotions, spoilage and shrink further erode profitability.
Obtaining maximum inventory performance is the key to plugging these profitability drains. But that will take more than
descriptive analytics, which provide a snapshot of past performance to answer the question, “What happened?”. It will
take more than predictive analytics, which utilize past performance to predict the future, answering the question, “What
might happen?”. It will take real-time prescriptive analytics to ‘prescribe’ a menu of potential actions you can take to
maximize inventory performance and profitability based on current store conditions, complete with the quantifiable
benefits of each decision, allowing you to intelligently answer the question, “What are the right actions, right now?”
And that is just what Zebra’s Action Manager powered by Profitect allows you to do.
FACT SHEET
ACTION MANAGER FOR RETAIL, POWERED BY PROFITECT
How it works: monthly subscription service
for fast, easy and flexible deployment
To get this cloud-based service up and running, simply
purchase a monthly subscription and connect Action
Manager’s powerful analytic engine from Profitect to
your store inventory management applications via the
supplied Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) —
a task that typically takes less than two weeks. Your
managers can then access Action Manager’s easy-touse web interface via PCs, laptops or tablets to define
the opportunities they want to identify.
Real-time guided and actionable insights
Just like GPS navigation provides real-time
instructions on when to turn based on current
location, Action Manager provides real-time actions
that you can take based on current operational
and inventory conditions. Instead of reports and
dashboards that present historical information that
you need to analyze in order to act, Action Manager
does the work for you, automatically identifying
emerging operational issues and determining
multiple decision paths you can take right now to
address those issues to increase sales and profit
margins. Actions can be delivered instantly to
the Zebra mobile computer of the right person to
execute a task. For example, if sales of an item
on promotion fell sharply today, associates could
immediately receive instructions to check display
signage and re-stock if necessary.
Insight into the return-on-action
— before you take action
Along with multiple possible action paths,
Action Manager provides the projected
measurable return on every suggested action,
allowing you to best assess which path will
deliver the right benefits for your business.
Over 100 ready-to-use patterns
With a library of over 100 ready-to use patterns,
you can begin detecting the trends you want
to identify the moment your system goes live.
Want to change patterns in our library or create
custom patterns? With Action Manager powered
by Profitect, it’s easy — there is no coding and no
programming knowledge required. The result is
the flexibility to monitor specific data and trends
you need to drive store profitability to a new level.
The Benefits of
Action Manager
Identifies downstream
profit opportunities at
store/item levels
Identifies upstream profit
opportunities throughout
the value chain
Reduces product damage
and waste losses
Increases on-shelf availability
SPECIFICATIONS
Identifies vendor quality
issues, improves RTV credits
FUNCTIONAL AREAS OF ANALYSIS
• On-hand availability
Maximizes sales revenue by
minimizing out-of-stocks
• Out of stock percent
• Cycle count adjustments
Increases customer
satisfaction
• Markdowns
• Physical inventory adjustments
Improves promotional
execution
• Receiving
• Sales and returns
• Return-to-Vendor
Prevents margin erosion
TYPICAL DATA
Reduces inventory
discrepancies
• Stores
Increases inventory
accuracy and visibility
• Products
• Vendors
• Calendars
Increases shrink visibility to
the SKU store level
• In-store on-hand snapshots
• Store receiving
• Inventory adjustments
• Daily sales
• Customer returns
• Physical stock take adjustments
• Return-to-Vendor (RTV)
• Open boxes/Known loss
• Workforce
• Mis-match
• Energy consumption
• Traffic counts
ACTION MANAGER POWERED BY PROFITECT — THE EASY WAY TO MAXIMIZE
INVENTORY PERFORMANCE, SALES AND PROFITABILITY IN YOUR STORE.
FOR MORE INFORMATION, VISIT WWW.ZEBRA.COM/ACTIONMANAGER
OR ACCESS OUR GLOBAL CONTACT DIRECTORY AT WWW.ZEBRA.COM/CONTACT
1. Retailers are losing $1.75 trillion over this; Krystina Gustafson; November 30, 2015; CNBC;
http://www.cnbc.com/2015/11/30/retailers-are-losing-nearly-2-trillion-over-this.html
NA and Corporate Headquarters
+1 800 423 0442
[email protected]
Asia-Pacific Headquarters
+65 6858 0722
[email protected]
EMEA Headquarters
zebra.com/locations
[email protected]
Latin America Headquarters
+1 847 955 2283
[email protected]
©2017 ZIH Corp and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved. Zebra and the stylized Zebra head are trademarks of ZIH Corp registered in many
jurisdictions worldwide. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners. Part number: FS-ACTMGR 01/11/17